St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-07-14

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on the subject, taking for his text:
Many of them, also. which used curious arts
brought their books together, and burned them
before all men; and they counted the price or
them, and found it fifty thousand pieces OF
silver Acts xix. 10.
Paul had been stirring up Ephesus with
some lively sermons about the sins OF
that place. Among the most important
results was the fact that the citizens
brought out their bad books and in pub
lie place made a bonfire of them see
the people coming out with their arms
full of Ephesian literature, and tossing it
into the flames. l hear an economist
standing by and saying:
s'Stop this waste. Here are s., 500 worth
of books-do you propose to burn them
all up? If you don't want to read them
yourself sell them and let somebody else
read them"
NO." said the people, ''if these books
are not good for US they are not good for
anybody else, and we shall stand and
watch until the last leaf has turned to
ashes They have done US a world of
harm, and they shall never do others
harm"
Hear the flames crack.e and roar.
Well, my friends. one of the wants of
the cities of this country is great bonfire
of bad books aud newspapers. We have
enough fuel to make blaze two hundred
feet high. Many of the publishing houses
would do we'll to throw into the blaze
their entire stock of goods. Bring forth
the insufferable trash and put it into the
fire, and let it be known in the presence of
God, and angels. and men, that you are
going to rid your homes Of the overtop-
,1,,;, Of TO
literature.
The printing press is the mightiest
agency on earth for good and for evil.
pulpit, has a responsible position; but
do not think it is as responsible as the po-
sition of an editor or publisher. At what
distant point of time, at what far-out
cycle of eternity, will cease the influence
of a Henry j. Raymond, or Horace
Greeley, or James Gordon Bennett, or
Watson Webb, or an Erastus Brooks, or
Thomas Kinsella? Take the simple
statistic that our New York
1ailies now have circulation of
about $50, 900 per day, and add to it the
fact that three of our weekly periodicals
have an aggregate circulation of about
1000, 900, and then cipher, if you can, how
far up, and how far down, and how far
out, reach the influences of the American
printlng-press.
Great God! What is to be the issue of
all this! / believe the Lord intends the
printing press to be the chief means for
the worlds rescue and evangelizatlon,
and think that the great last battle OF
the world will not be fought with swords
and guns, but with types and presses-a
purified and gospel literature trium phlng
over, trampling down and crushing out
for ever that which is depraved. The
only way to overcome unclean literature
is by scattering abroad that which is
healthful. May God speed the cylinders
of an honest, intelligent, aggressive,
Christian printing press.
have to tell you this mornin G that the
greatest blessing that ever came to this
Nation is that of an elevated literature,
and the greatest scourge has been that of
unclean literature. This last has its vic
tins in all occupations and departments.
1t has helped to fill insane asylums and
penitentiaries and almshouses and dens OF
shame. The bodies of this infection lie in
the hospitals and in the graves, while
their souls are being tossed over into
lost eternity, an avalanche of horror and
despair.
The London plague was nothing to it.
That counted its victims by thousands,
but this modern pest has already shoveled
its millions into the charnel-house of the
morally dead. The longest rail train that
ever ran over the Erie Oh Hudson tracks
was not long enough nor large enough to
carry the beastliness and the putrefaction
which have been gathered up in bad
books and newspapers of this land in the
last twenty years.
Standing, as we do, chin deep in ficti-
tious literature, the first question that
many of the young people are asking me
is: s'Shall we read novels?" I reply:
There are novels that are pure, good,
Christian, elevating to the heart and en-
nobling to the life. But have still fur
ther to say that believe that ninety-nine
out of the hundred novels in this day are
balefuland destructive to the last degree
A pure work of fiction is history and poet
ry comb lned. It is history of things
around us, with the licenses and the as
sumed names of poetry. The world can
never pay the debt which it owes to such
fictitious writer's as Hawthorne and Nc
Kenzie, and Lander and Hunt, and Arthur
and Marion Harland, and others whose
names are familiar to all The follies of
high life were never better exposed than
by Miss Edgeworth. The memories of the
past were never more faithfully embalm-
ed than in the writings of Walter Scott.
Cooper's novels are BEAUTIFULLY red
olent with the breath Of the sea-
weed, and the air of the American forest.
Charles Kingsley has smitten the NOR
bidty of the world, and led great many
to appreciate the poetry of sound health,
strong muscles, and fresh air. Thackery
did grand work in caricaturing the pre-
tenders to gentility and high blood.
Dickens has built his own monument in
his books, which are an everlasting plea
for the poor, and the anathema of Unjust
ice.
Now, say, books like these, read at
right times, and read in right proportion
with other books, can not help but be en-
nobling and purifying; but alas for the
Ioathsosne and impure literature that has